1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains in general to image segmentation systems and in particular to techniques for segmenting individual images by combining information from individual images and groups of images.
2. Background of the Invention
Image segmentation refers to the process of partitioning an image into multiple regions. This is done to make the image easier to analyze. Typically, image segmentation is used to locate objects and boundaries within images. Objects or regions in the image are identified based some characteristic or property such as color, intensity, or texture. Adjacent regions are typically significantly different with respect to the same characteristic.
Traditionally, image segmentation examines individual images to find regions of a particular color, a smooth color variation, or based on a priori knowledge of what is being segmented. The drawbacks of such a process clearly stem from the fact that such a priori knowledge of a model, color, or texture is not always readily available. For objects or regions that are novel or yet to be characterized, this process clearly falls short.
Further, by segmenting a single image at a time, common objects in different images may be classified differently due to color, lighting, and texture variations between images. Further, color variations within an object in an image may cause the segmentation to only identify a sub-region and not the complete region.